The progressive’s guide to reacting to offensive comedy

Things have quieted down since
the last string of shocking incidents, but we can’t afford to be complacent.
Another one could happen by the time you read this, and you’ll want to be
ready.

Bill Maher took his medicine.
Kathy Griffin is lying low. And more online petitions are ready in case Stephen
Colbert tries anything else. But before the next comedic assault on decency
leaves us shaken and sputtering with outrage, let me offer a few observations
from decades of interviewing and studying comedians from George Carlin to Lewis
Black, and even former comedians such as Dennis Miller (ahem).

Let’s quit being snowflakes with my Progressive’s Guide to Responding to Offensive
Comedy.

1. You don't have to respond.

I’ve always viewed taking offense at
entertainment as the avocation of the dim-witted (of any political type) who
are unaware that they can change the channel or stop reading. But that was
before the Instant Internet Outrage Machine made us all feel like we’re
white-knuckle-driving nitroglycerine trucks in William Friedkin’s Sorcerer movie.

Most people don’t call radio talk shows, write
letters to the editor, or demand that comedians lose their careers for a crack
that rubs them the wrong way or misfires. We have something better to do. What,
exactly? Anything.

2. We should apologize less.

On the May 1 Late
Show, Stephen Colbert said of President Trump, “the only thing your mouth
is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s cock holster.”

#FireColbert immediately trended on Twitter
and petitions gathered the names of both right and left apoplectic at such
filth aimed at the Russophile-in-Chief and who found the joke homophobic.

My take: the joke wasn’t anti-gay but mocked a
pair of macho narcissists who’d rather be caught dead than queer. Not all jokes
about touchy or marginalized subjects are phobic.
Colbert hardly has a history of gay-bashing. And “cock holster” is hilarious.
Attention T-shirt makers.

Colbert’s response: “I don’t
regret that.” The studio cheered. “He, I believe, can take care of himself. I
have jokes. He has the launch codes. So it’s a fair fight. So while I would do
it again, I would change a few words that were cruder than they needed to be.
I’m not going to repeat the phrase, but I just want to say for the record, life
is short, and anyone who expresses their love for another person, in their own
way, is to me an American hero. I think we can all agree on that. I hope even
the president and I can agree on that. Nothing else, but that.”

Nervy and perfect. Oh, and conservatives
almost never apologize for things they say.

3. Don't lose your head.

On May 30, a photograph of notoriously
outrageous comic Kathy Griffin holding a fake, bloody Trump head caused Ikea to
sell out of fainting couches. Conservatives lost their minds, progressives got
squeamish, and Griffin lost her nerve—as well as work.

My take: the photo just seemed like a French
Revolution gag. That had been in the air to the degree that even I tweeted “Let
them eat Trump steaks!” on March 20, with an article about Trump’s Mar-A-Lago
trips costing more than Meals on Wheels.

Griffin’s response: a video apology as
excruciating as her tearful press conference—and
they made no difference. Conservative mouth-breathers from cable news to
Twitter were putting Griffin atop their scapegoat lists for the Virginia GOP
shooting. Entertainment news bottom-feeders speculated about her long road to redemption.

Did Griffin go too far? Not one
swirled hair. There’s a long tradition of bloody satire, and it harms no one,
as opposed to, say, taking away health care. Nor does it make anyone violent, because
humans have free will and choose their actions, and if they don’t, life has no
meaning. Blaming comedy (or any entertainment) for real-life violence is the
shameless tactic of political opportunists and talk show hosts looking for easy
material. Politicians inciting violence is another thing. (See below.)

The Internet Outrage Machine is like a dog.
You can’t show it fear. The one thing Griffin got right in her apology was that
Trump and his people are bullies.

4. Take note of who's leading the outrage before you follow.

Like all bullies, Trump’s too thin-skinned to
take a fraction of what he dishes out. From mocking a disabled reporter to
birtherism to encouraging violence at his rallies—and plenty more—Trump, his
family and his supporters have permanently lost the right to claim they’re
offended by anything, ever. Other than reported facts and science.

The people who not only failed to repudiate
but embraced Ted Nugent and others, and who looked the other way or took part
in eight years of abhorrent remarks about President Obama? Their umbrage is the
real joke.

5. Avoid circular firing squads.

Conservatives get no greater pleasure than
when progressives turn on each other. Unless it’s the pleasure of stepping on
the poor.

Even better for them if it’s over
inconsequential media dustups. Better still if those are distractions from
Actual Issues, such as becoming the world’s outlier on fighting climate change.
They’re longtime experts at getting people to vote against their own interests
over cultural matters that don’t affect them. (See, for instance: gay.)

Right-wingers are known to have authoritarian
personalities and fall into lockstep much more easily than progressives. We
don’t have to be like them to avoid giving them the satisfaction of seeing us
at each other’s throats.

6. Yes, each other's.

Comedians tend to be liberal, so cut some
slack.

Although there are notable exceptions, such as
the Jeff Foxworthy Axis of Trailers and Dennis Miller, who apparently snapped
after 9/11 and took a hard—and unfunny—right turn. (Unless you find riffing on
Nancy Pelosi’s face to be the stuff of the Algonquin Round Table.) One side
punches up, and the other punches down.

Don’t believe me? Look up the short-lived and
excruciating Fox News version of The
Daily Show from 2007 called The
½ Hour News Hour.

7. Comedians are in their own category.

Comedians get to say things that an Uber board
member or Ann Coulter or a senator—even the newly relaxed Al Franken—don’t.
They get to say things that would cost you your job. They’re not statesmen.
When John McCain makes an awkward “Bomb, bomb Iran” crack, it’s unsettling. If
a comedian does that, it’s likely satirical, as they don’t set foreign policy.

Comedians are our court jesters, and the
better ones are also part philosophers. They speak uncomfortable truths, mock
the powerful and provoke.

Our taste, sensibilities,
approval, and especially our boundaries, are irrelevant to comedy, if not its
natural targets. As Carlin told me, “Nothing’s off-limits if it’s properly
couched and properly contextualized.” He then proceeded to use a “baby-rape”
example I won’t detail here.

A careful comic is either an oxymoron or a
bore. It’s no accident that our news media has grown more useless in direct
proportion to growing more careful, while late-night comics have become more
and more reliable sources of truth, or even just saying the obvious when no one
else will.

8. Focus on the big picture.

Now watch while I rise to Bill Maher’s defense
for saying That One Word.

On his June 2 episode of HBO’s Real Time, Maher responded to Nebraska Sen.
Ben Sasse’s invitation to come and do field work thusly: “Work in the fields?
Senator, I’m a house nigger.”

OK, no.

Does Maher deserve the benefit of the doubt?
Am I even allowed to have an opinion on this subject? (Spoiler: I’m whiter than
a mayonnaise sandwich.) Depends who you ask, and you could fill books with
the answers.

My take: Maher seemed to be attempting a
satirical, edgy ad lib on live TV about racism,
that didn’t come close to meeting the above Carlin rule. And he reaped the
fucking whirlwind.

Maher’s response: he apologized and then had
Black guests Ice Cube, Symone Sanders and his friend Michael Eric Dyson on the
next show for chastisement. If that’s the 2017 version of white people
apologizing to Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson when they screw up, it was an odd
mixture of sincerity and impatience from Maher. He pointed out that “Comedians
are a special kind of monkey.” Lousy word choice, valid point, still a shitty
joke.

Big picture: Maher has been a gutsy liberal
satirist and gadfly for decades, calling out conservatives and racists, week in
and week out, before Stewart, Colbert, Noah, Oliver and Bee. He hasn’t behaved
like a racist. In fact, he’s notably said that not all conservatives are
racists, but if you’re a racist you’re probably a conservative.

9. There are no perfect progressives.

Not that Maher doesn’t have his flaws or rub
some people the wrong way. In addition to the basic odds of a comedian
self-destructing on live TV over time, his harping on Islam comes off as
obsessive even when he’s making sound observations. (See also: Sam Harris.) But
if progressives dogpile on flawed members of their own team, the herd’s going
to thin fast.

We lose elections because we hold out for
perfect liberal candidates. Anyone happy with the result of that? Expecting a
comic not to transgress or bomb now and then makes even less sense.

Call them out when they’re in the wrong, move
on when they acknowledge it, and reserve serious outrage for the people whose
intentions are genuinely, dangerously offensive.

10. It all blows over fast.

Colbert’s ratings got better. Griffin was
never on the radar of people pissed about her, and she’s dropped back off it.
Maher’s show is back to normal.

And yet we keep taking the bait. It’s almost
as if we’re the ones who don’t learn from their mistakes.

Well-meaning progressives can disagree about
all of this. And debate. And troll each other. And unfriend each-other. But we
could do it with thicker skin.

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